This is just excellent! Feel free to share and to “LIKE” Daily Salvo on Facebook (and comment there if you like!). Daily Salvo is on 1180 WFYL.com every day somewhere around 8 a.m. and they have a website too. Smile West Vincent Township, tales of your escapades are spreading….just as bad news is wont to do….
Daily Salvo has also touched on West Vincent’s issues in two other pieces of commentary:
Yes, I am one of those crazy people who cooks even when it is hot. I have two dead simple recipes to share with my readers today. They are not necessarily to be served together, I just happened to be fiddling after gardening.
One is a summer salad with Israeli Couscous, and the second is my spin on cornbread. Cornbread to me is summer and fall.
Cornbread
Oven pre-heated to 425 degrees.
Grease and flour a loaf pan.
Mix all the “wet” ingredients together. You can do it with a whisk. I do add the melted 
butter slowly and last into the wet. You don’t want to cook your egg, after all.
Combine all the dry ingredients and whisk into the wet ingredients. Pour in your prepared pan and top the batter with a dusting of turbinado sugar.
Pop into your pre-heated oven and 
cook about 25 minutes. Today I cooked it a couple of minutes more, other times a couple of minutes less – depends on the oven. When the cornbread is slightly brown on top, maybe a couple of cracks on the top and a skewer or knife comes out clean, the bread is finished. Take it out, let it cool, remove from pan.
Easy and delicious.
This bread is yummy plain, with butter, with jams or preserves, or honey. I like 
cornbread with honey. Right now the honey I have is from right here in West Chester – Carmen B’s.
Summer Salad With Israeli Couscous 
Boil the dry Israeli Couscous in about 3 cups of water according to directions on package of whatever brand you buy (around 12 minutes.) Drain it and shock it with a quick dash of cold water and toss into a bowl. Israeli Couscous is larger, and looks like little wheat colored pearls. You can’t 
substitute regular couscous for this recipe. It is specifically designed for the Israeli Couscous.
Chop up a few spring onions (or a bunch of scallions), one or two tomatoes, small bunch of Italian flat leaf parsley, small bunch of fresh mint (you CAN’T substitute dried mint, it will taste gross, so don’t even try), fresh radishes. Season with Jayshree Kosher Salt Garden Seasoning and fresh ground pepper OR Season with regular salt and pepper. The Jayshree Kosher Salt Garden Seasoning is well worth ordering, or Jane’s Crazy Mixed Up Salt would work too. Not Lowry’s Seasoned Salt – ick. Plain salt and pepper might be too bland, but it is entirely up to you.
Toss ingredients lightly and create a simple dressing from the lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic. Whisk the vinaigrette together 
and pour over salad mixture. Add crumbled Queso and pine nuts if you so choose. Toss again and refrigerate.
Easy and delicious.
All the veggies I put in my summer salad with Israeli Couscous today came from the East Goshen Farmers Market. I would love to share recipes with the market, but apparently, I am too different a person for the market manager to handle, or I am not politically correct enough, or both. She had contacted me , wanting to link my blog to the EGFM blog, but then changed her mind. I was fine with that (and felt bad at the time that she was obviously so uncomfortable having to tell me “oops”). You see, Birchrun Hills Farms is a producer at this market, I am not changing my mind on how I feel about Farmer-
Supervisor Miller and his part in the attempted eminent domain for private gain of Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show Grounds, or the dubious shenanigans in West Vincent. This is why yesterday, when I had a lunch meeting at White Dog Cafe in Wayne, I passed over a couple of luncheon dishes that were advertised as being made with Birchrun Hills Farm products.
I do however, love the East Goshen Farmers Market even if Madam Market was so impossibly rude last week to me it was embarrassing and hurtful at the same time. Which given her perky PTA mom persona the rest of the time I have seen her (which is only at the market), was somewhat shocking. It was last week’s behavior that has made me mention the drama a second and last time on this blog.
I am new to this community, so a lot of people are getting to know me. I totally get that. But I believe in being active and helpful in one’s community (paying things forward), and last week the EGFM said they were looking for input on gluten-free bakeries and products. So I stopped to give feedback. The conversation kind of came to a screeching halt when she snapped at me how she was a nutritionist. I am a breast cancer survivor, but I don’t go around snapping that at people when they talk about the disease and possibly use incorrect buzz words and such. And if I am working on a community event and someone is kind enough to offer feedback when I solicit it, I am always glad to listen. After all, you never know where the next great idea will come from. And well, heck, I know people who have started these farm markets and hired bakeries in this area for organic and gluten free. I also have friends who live utterly gluten free lives and have to bake on their own because the variety of what they find at gluten free bakeries doesn’t suit their allergies.
Whatever.
I don’t need this gal as a BFF (and since I am blogging about it, a precisely made voodoo doll may be in the process of being crafted or the Welcome Wagon might run me over, I simply don’t know), but I will tell you what, being a newcomer into an area versus being part of the established community has shown me again why you shouldn’t judge before you get to know someone. Live and let live, and her loss. I will never be rude to this person, and I will be happy to support the market because it is truly fabulous and with the exception of one farm, full of wonderful vendors. In that regard she has done a marvelous job. She can’t help the rest of it. Just her nature.
To the rest of you, my readers and the people I am meeting here and there as I settle into Chester County, thank you for the warm and friendly welcome. I look forward to sharing more with you on this blog as the spirit moves me.
Happy cooking!
Yay! The farmers’ market is this afternoon in East Goshen Park. I encourage all my readers to support local farmers whenever possible.
Yes, some of the farmers here are from Lancaster and Berks counties, but you are still supporting Pennsylvania agriculture. I will admit however, that I am disappointed that they don’t have more local Chester County farmers like Farmer Bob from Sugartown Strawberries represented at the market.
And once again, I can and will boycott one purveyor at East Goshen Farmers Market – Birchrun Hills Farm, which is owned by West Vincent Supervisor and lover of Eminent Domain Ken Miller. Maybe if he hadn’t tried to make the Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show Grounds disappear and hadn’t done a lot of other skunk worthy things, I wouldn’t be so tough on his farm. But you don’t have to take my word for it – check out Chickenman or aswestvincentturns on You Tube – Even The Daily Salvo has picked up on the manure stench of West Vincent.
The East Goshen Farmers Market wants to know what we make with our goodies gleaned from the market. From last week’s bounty I made a Rhubarb-Strawberry Crisp. Extra yummy due to a touch of tamarind nectar and a dash of cardamom.
See you at the market!
I cut my activism teeth on fighting eminent domain for private gain in Ardmore, PA as part of The Save Ardmore Coalition and with the help of the utterly fabulous Institute for Justice in Washington, DC.
My fellow Save Ardmore Coalition members and myself went to Washington and 
other places to fight side by side with people like Susette Kelo for legislation against eminent domain abuse. Many of us gave testimony at the time on H.R. 4128. We introduced the author of H.R. 4128, now author of H.R. 1433 James Sensenbrenner to Ardmore to check it all out.
H.R. 4128 got buried, but has been resurrected today as H.R. 1433, the Private Property Rights Protection Act.
I am paying it forward and suggesting you do to. Check out an e-mail just received from Christina Walsh at IJ:
Friends:
H.R. 1433, the Private Property Rights Protection Act, will likely be considered by the House of Representatives this week. It was reported out of the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month. It is critical that you contact your representatives TODAY and tell them to vote for H.R. 1433. You may remember that this bill passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly in 2005 by a vote of 376 – 38, but has been stonewalled in the Senate since.You can find your representative’s contact information here.
This reform is long overdue. H.R. 1433 will strip any municipality that abuses eminent domain of federal economic development funds for two years. You can read the text of the bill here. It’s time that Congress stop being complicit in the abuse of eminent domain.
Read IJ’s op-ed in the Washington Times on federal eminent domain reform efforts here and below.
Please forward this alert onto your friends, colleagues and e-mail lists, and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Best,
Christina Walsh Director of Activism and Coalitions Institute for Justice 901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900 Arlington, VA 22203 (703) 682-9320 (703)-682-9321 (fax) www.ij.orgwww.castlecoalition.org
WALSH: Congress can halt eminent domain abuse Politicians must be stopped from using law to reward developer friends
When the U.S. Supreme Court rules, more often than not, that settles the matter.
But not in the case of Kelov. City of NewLondon, where the court sparked a revolt that quickly flared across more than three dozen states. The decision, handed down in 2005, told cities across the country to feel free to take away homes and businesses from property owners and give them to wealthy developers, as long as cities promise they think new developments might generate more tax dollars or jobs, with an emphasis on “think” and “might.”
There is no appeal of Supreme Court decisions and changing the Constitution is hard, but that didn’t stop states from setting more protective standards for their own property owners. Since Kelo, 44 states have enacted laws restricting the power of eminent domain to varying degrees, and more protections are being added. Virginia’s legislature is close to passing expanded protections.
Despite the differences in the reform efforts, the message remains the same: You got it wrong, Supreme Court. Now the nationwide revolt has come to Congress, finally allowing the federal government to join the effort to stop eminent domain abuse.
The power of eminent domain is supposed to be for “public use” so government can build things like roads and schools. Local governments essentially can force homeowners and business owners to sell their land, often at cut-rate prices, so essential services can be built. But starting with the wildly unsuccessful urban renewal efforts of the 1940s and 1950s, “public use” has been stretched to mean anything that possibly could benefit the public, not limited to what the public might actually share in using – shopping malls, fancy housing developments and office towers that could pay those local governments more in property taxes.
It has been demonstrated time and again that eminent domain is routinely used to wipe out black, Hispanic and poorer communities, with less political capital and influence, in favor of developers’ grand plans.
It also has been demonstrated that restrictions on eminent domain in no way inhibit economic growth, as the beneficiaries of eminent domain abuse would like you to believe. Development will continue to happen every day, as it always has, through private negotiation – not government force.
In fact, prohibitions on eminent domain abuse instill confidence in investments, leading to even stronger economic growth.
Groups across the philosophical spectrum have recognized the need to limit this abuse of power to protect those who are defenseless against the seemingly unstoppable alliance of powerful, deep-pocketed developers and their politician friends. The diverse coalition has included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Federation of Independent Business and the Farm Bureau. It’s safe to say that the coalition also includes more than 80 percent of Americans, as demonstrated poll after poll taken after Kelo.
Despite the evidence that Americans are united against the misuse of eminent domain, Congress has yet to to take even a modest step. A bipartisan bill, H.R. 1433, making its way through the House would strip a city of federal economic development funding for two years if the city takes private property to give to someone else for their private use. Cities that want to keep their funding will have to be more circumspect in using eminent domain.
This bill undoubtedly will pass the House as it did in 2005, and likely will get stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, where it has gone to die in years past.
It is tragic because this is exactly the kind of centrist reform – uniting minority advocates and small-business interests – where Republicans and Democrats should be able to work together.
Christina Walsh is director of activism and coalitions for the Institute for Justice, which argued the Kelo case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
I am on pins and needles waiting for the update of last evening’s Board of Supervisors Meeting in West Vincent where they were discussing controlling the public voice as far as public participation. Or was he there and just really, really tiny wearing his Super Politician Cloak of Invisibility?
What I heard thus far is King of all Goats Supervisor Ken Miller was a no-show? Now some of my farmer friends are starting to see their mama goats drop new kids on the block, so was he playing midwife? Or merely playing possum?
And was the Township Manager James Wendelgass really out sick? Does he need chicken soup from Chickenman? I 
seem to recall reading/hearing about absences like this when eminent domain was heating up to try to be the Christmas gift that keeps on giving? So is this a small government tactic to make sure there are no quorums, etc when decisions have to be made?
My largest amusement factor of meeting tidbits thus far is Supervisor David Brown having an apparent case of selective male Alzheimer’s and having zero recall on how meetings, etc go in Lower Merion Township? Where he spent many years, as in decades before becoming a reinvented country gent? REALLY?
Ok so if he can’t remember, wow, if I were him I would worry about being effective as a West Vincent Supervisor. Here are some choice activities from his own political resume posted on his own website (one will asume the website will stay up of course?) He posted this info, to show you the good people of West Vincent his qualifications. So pardon me if I do not believe he doesn’t know anything about “how Lower Merion does things, and that’s where I’m from”. See (partial posting):
CIVIC
- Gladwyne Fire Company Director 1982 – 2005 Member Executive Committee 1990 – 2005 Solicitor 1980 – present
- Gladwyne Civic Association Former Director
POLITICAL ACTIVITY
- Republican Committee of Lower Merion & Narberth Committeeman 1976 – 1990
- Counsel to Committee 1990 – 2004
- Member Executive Committee 1990 – 2004
- Former Solicitor to Montgomery County Controller
Mr. Brown, with all due respect to your many years of service in Lower Merion, but in my humble opinion, you know exactly how things are done now and were done then in Lower Merion.
As an outsider looking in, I do not get any of this. Why so many issues that skirt transparency and sunshine let alone public participation in the government residents are paying for? They want public participation, but only if they control it? Welcome to Pravda or what? How is West Vincent supposed to know and listen to its citizens if it muzzles them?
Is it true when it got around to this public participation on the agenda that Supervisor Brown said there was nothing to the issue other than to tell people that it was “still being worked on”? Magna Carta anyone?
Maybe as a helpful outsider I can remind Mr. Brown of his own words from when he was a candidate?
Thus far West Vincent has left me alone. I do feel, however, that they need to be reminded of freedom of speech and opinion….and that political satire is as old as dirt.
Apparently, skeet shooting is no more at Ludwig’s Corner. Pity. I received an update from the horse show folks:
The End of an EraFifty three years ago, what might seem like a different era, The Chester Springs Skeet Club which was originally made up of WWII Veterans approached the LCHSA about operating a gun club on the Horse Show Grounds. That was the beginning of a long and friendly relationship between the two entities. Over the years, names and faces in both organizations may have changed but LCHSA could always count on the “Gun Club” and their family members to volunteer for the Labor Day Horse Show, as well as monetary support.Regrettably, as the neighborhood grew up around the grounds, and after much debate, LCHSA decided to give the contractually required 12 month termination notice. The Gun Club decided it “was in the best interest of the Horse Show to end shooting as soon as possible”. They reported that they would end their use of the Horse Show Grounds on Sunday, February 12, 2012.LCHSA will forever be grateful to the members of the club and their families for their help with the Horse Show.
I hope the McMansion set will now be blissfully happy in their Tyvec wrapped Barbie’s Dream Houses. The irony is I bet those who have kids who play video games deal with more noise than skeet shooting will ever produce. But now when Buffys jet off in their GIANT SUVs chatting on cellies to pick up that one lettuce leaf they will be able to do it in quiet. Well except for the fact that skeet shooting will no longer drown out the inanity of their conversations taking place on said aforementioned cell phones (cellies) …
Sorry was that sarcastic? It was meant to be. People who move to relatively rural areas need to get real. Next horse, goat, and cow manure will be too stinky for their Febreeze Set and Refreshes to handle….and chickens will be too loud some day and tofurkies will then take up residence in chicken coops all over Chester County because they are more quiet…and what is left of rolling lawns and fields will continue to be replaced by AstroTurf because nothing says natural like plastic grass. Eyes rolling. (Sorry I feel better now.)
(And for those of you looking for a new home to skeet shoot, consider the West Chester Gun Club: http://westchestergunclub.com/ )
Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show also included in their update how they came to be:
How the Horse Show came to be.
In recent months, we have been asked by many about the history of the “Horse Show”. With great thanks to Woody Zook, who has been involved with the Horse Show throughout most of it’s history, we have been able to review documents and programs from almost every Horse Show. It is my intent to share a piece of history with every e-mail I send. If any of this information rings a bell with you, or you can add further information, or perhaps photos, please respond to this e-mail, as we’d like to talk to you. The Horse Show is a significant piece of the history of our township that should be shared.It started like this…..“In 1944 a group of people living around Ludwig’s Coner banded together to give a horse show at Ludwig’s Corner. The group consisted of Mrs. E. C. Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Dare, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Baxter, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hamilton, Mr. A. L. Coffman, Mr. Richard Coffman, Mr. Guy Richards, Mrs. Henry Biddle, Jr., Mr and Mrs. Edwin Bruner, Mr. Scott Rice, Mr. A. Chapin Rogers and Mr. Joseph Myers. They were all very fond of horses and enjoyed fox hunting in the territory of the Eagle and Kimberton Hunts. Around the opening of the fox hunting season on Labor Day, it seemed to them, (it) would be a good opportunity to get together to put their hunters through their paces. It would also be a means of bringing the whole community together for a day of fun and visiting. The proceeds of the days entertainment would go to the local Boy and Girl Scout Troops to help maintain their activity.”page 1, official records of the Ludwigs Corner Horse Show.
And oh yes, they seem to think West Vincent residents need to pay even MORE attention to the doings in West Vincent….
Would you like to support the horse show?
Send a donation to:
Ludwigs Corner Horse Show PO Box 754 Uwchland,, Pennsylvania 19480
Check out their website: http://www.ludwigshorseshow.org/
Snow is quiet, but not exactly silent, have you noticed? It makes almost a little whoosh sound as it falls all around you.
I look out the window and it is almost Currier & Ives perfect. I wonder if I will ever be able to adequately capture the beauty of a winter’s morning with my camera lens. Snowflakes flitter and float to the ground, and I think back to when I was a child and the man across the road from us had a collection of carriages and sleighs. His name was David Gwinn, his nickname was “The Squire.”
Now today there is not actually snow on the roads where you could take a sleigh out, but for some reason this morning as I looked out the window, a memory came floating back across the early morning. In my head I could hear the faint remembrance of sleigh bells of long ago. It was such a happy sound. Of course, things change and now in place of where Mr. Gwinn’s horses once happily munched apples, a McMansion is planted.
These horsey memories for lack of a better description were part of a magic that many kids do not have in their lives today. It’s a way of life I fear will be pushed aside, and I see this pushing aside in West Vincent with every new transgression thought up against a horse show that has been not only part of the fabric Chester County for near a decade but served the community well.
This makes me sad. These people who in my opinion, are trying to get rid of some of the very civilities that fed their pretensions to move to places like West Vincent in the first place, do not get it. And if they, along with a local government of questionable motivation, prevail in the quest to rid Chester County of a fine tradition, what will replace it? Nameless, faceless inanity…and no appreciation of the simple joys of winter mornings. The new should not necessarily rule the old because once these unique qualities of a community are gone, much like when a historic home is torn down, it’s not coming back.
The birds are treating the feeders like diners on a highway, and the usual cardinal
couples (they seem to like to double date at the feeder) have been joined by a bird I have never seen before today (not Mr. Flicker, but an Orchard Oriole).
Truthfully this is a Robert Frost kind of morning. He wrote a lot about snow in his poetry.
By Robert Frost1874–1963 Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound’s the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.